I think I was in Reno in the 1960's, but I don't remember much about it. It seems like it has grown up into a fine example of urban sprawl stretching from one mountain range to the other and even squeezing through the cracks in mountain ranges.
Reno had one severe problem. You can see indirect evidence of it in the picture above, and direct evidence of it in the picture below. I KNOW it is a major part of Reno's history, but seriously, they have to get the railroad out of downtown. It was just too disruptive when they went through in the middle of the night. You could tell that some of the engineers seemed to try and make as little noise as possible, especially with the whistle, but that others seemed to want to make sure you knew they were in town.
Downtown. Nice skyline.
All out of the window of my hotel room at the Golden Phoenix Hotel. Morning, afternoon and night. Different days, of course. I didn't just hang out in the hotel for the whole experiment.
Above is the Silver Legacy Resort. We couldn't figure out what the dome was, but when we went inside to investigate it turned out to be just a dome. Nothing really special. In another part of the casino (actually I think there were underground walkways that connected several casinos together, so it may have been in a whole other casino) there was a full-sized trapeze act above a room full of carnival-type games. That was different.
Now for some place I'd never been before. Lake Tahoe. We had a bit of spare time after all of the instruments were programmed and were on their way to being deployed by others in the hot desert sun, so we jumped in the car and headed south of town.
Nice sunset. I guess that was the Lady Of The Lake on the right. Lake Tahoe is about 22 miles long and 12 miles wide. At 1645 feet deep it is the second deepest lake in the U.S. (only Crater Lake in Oregon is deeper). The lake was originally just a valley, but an earthquake-generated fault -- many earthquakes over a long period of time -- formed a blockage to the area's only water outlet about 2 to 3 million years ago. As the blockage was thrust up the original, and what ended up being that deepest portion of the lake, sunk. The whole lake area, with 63 rivers flowing into it, and only one blocked outlet slowly filled up to form the lake.
Oh man! That plane is getting footy prints all over my sunset. The area where we stopped had signs about the Comstock Lode, which was a silver strike in the mountains near Lake Tahoe that happened in 1859. All of the construction to support the mines and the building of the associated towns basically stripped the forests of the area bare. The Comstock Lode was probably the the greatest mineral strike in history.
Above is the tunnel of Cave Rock. In the 1840's a road was built around the rock for the gold and silver miners working in the area. The rock, all 360 feet in height and 300 feet of shoreline of it, was and still is an important spiritual center for the Washoe Indians that have lived along the banks of Lake Tahoe for over 10,000 years. The cave, not the tunnel above, on the south side of the rock was only allowed to be visited by the Washoe shamans. We continued south on Highway 50 until it got too dark to see much. We made a pit stop at the restaurant and store at Zephyr Cove before turning around and heading back to Reno.
2018-03-03